In his opinion column “Doctor, it’s none of your (darn) business,” [Recorder, June 3], Jon Huer wants us to believe that he has missed or dismissed the established science linking loneliness and physical illness. He argues that the U.S. Surgeon General, a “body specialist,” knows less about social issues than “a homeless man in the street,” and that loneliness is the price we pay for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

We have all witnessed the steep rise in isolation, depression, drug abuse and suicide affecting Americans in all ages and parts of the country, and we know that social isolation is not a healthy condition to endure — whether it is a lifestyle choice, as Huer claims, or the result of factors beyond our control. Here is what one clinical study published in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research found:

“Loneliness can lead to various psychiatric disorders like depression, alcohol abuse, child abuse, sleep problems, personality disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. It also leads to various physical disorders like diabetes, autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart disease, hypertension (HTN), obesity, physiological aging, cancer, poor hearing and poor health. Left untended, loneliness can have serious consequences for mental and physical health. Therefore, it is important to intervene at the right time to prevent loneliness, so that the physical and mental health of patients is maintained.”

In “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community,” Dr. Vivek Murthy documents the crisis we face today, exacerbated by the COVID pandemic and addiction to social media and opioids, and what we can do about it. We need “a nationwide revival of human connections (including 15 minutes of telephone conversations with someone) to overcome the problem of loneliness,” as Huer correctly reports.

Yet Jon Huer repeatedly enjoins “the good doctor” to mind his own business, forgetting that the business of a surgeon general is “to provide Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.”

Fortunately for us, Dr. Murthy is a very good doctor indeed, and we do well to heed his medical advice. Of the four things one might wish for maximum health and happiness in a long life, according to “The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” (launched by Harvard in 1939 and updated this January) — money, job, health, and relationships — the life factor that leads to all the others is relationships.

Christopher Queen lives in Wendell.

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